A VKontakte post from "Novorossia" fighter and former "defense minister" of the "Donetsk People's Republic" Igor Girkin (aka Strelkov), who says that he's "well-informed" about what's happening in Donetsk but "unfortunately couldn't affect it right now."
I'll leave the parsing of Girkin's message to Leonid Ragozin and Pete Leonard:
"The Wall Street Journal" highlighted a key element of Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak's media appearance on Saturday in which he said, "First of all, we do have the intelligence reports [on] what happened to MH17 and the reports are pretty conclusive."
Najib suggested that a fundamental task of investigators hoping to return to the crash site this week will be to "assemble physical evidence that can be brought to court when the time comes so that it can be proven beyond any doubt that the plane was shot down by a missile."
The Facebook page of former Ukrainian Interior Minister and current Bloc of Petro Poroshenko leader Yuriy Lutsenko purports to name five NATO countries that agreed in Wales to send modern weapons and Western military advisers to Ukraine: United States, France, Poland, Norway, and Italy.
Pope Francis talked about Ukraine in his Sunday prayer at the Vatican:
" In these last few days there have been significant steps in the search for a truce in the regions affected by the conflict in eastern Ukraine."
"But today I heard news that was less comforting. However, I hope that [both sides in the conflict] can bring relief to the population and contribute to the efforts for a lasting peace. I pray that, in the logic of the meeting, the dialogue that has been initiated will continue and will bear the hoped-for fruit."
Dutchman won't have any of the Russian president's "behavior and thinking," rejects Pushkin medal:
Dutch literary translator Hans Boland has refused to accept an award from the Russian authorities for his work, in protest at ‘president Putin’s behaviour and thinking’, the NRC reports.
Boland should have been awarded the Pushkin medal by Putin himself on November 4, the NRC said.
h/t: @EuromaidanPR
Here's some of what RFE/RL Ukrainian Service correspondent Vitaliy Sizov told us by phone about the situation in Mariupol on Sunday:
"The situation in Mariupol is calm and stable despite yesterday's shelling at a [government] check point. People were out in the city freely, but there were less people than usual. All stores were open."
"There is enhanced police patrolling, there wasn't any yesterday. They control the city center. I also saw members of the National Guard."
"Toward evening, gunfire could briefly be heard in the city center as well as the sound of cars driving fast, as though someone was being chased."
Our latest newsroom wrap-up of the latest events:
Mariupol, Donetsk Shelling Threaten Ukraine Cease-Fire
